See the future: Augmented reality head-up displays beckon

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Picture-in-picture may be coming to your next car courtesy of head-up displays that put more snippets of information in your line of sight. By giving you controlled doses of data projected onto a reflective rectangle just above the steering wheel, automakers say you’ll be safer because your eyes don’t wander about the cockpit looking to the center stack and instrument panel. Imagine an exit or turn arrow that doesn’t just point to the right but has the same angle as the turn you’re approaching and expands as you reach the turn. You’ll interact with the displays by arm gestures, voice input, or traditional dashboard buttons and knobs. Cost will be an issue since current HUDs run more than $1,000.

This month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a coming out party for head-up displays concepts. They’re also being called augmented reality HUDs or AR windshields, perhaps on account of simpler versions of head-up displays (spelled that way, not heads-up display, pilots are quick to note) have been around in cars for two decades and for a lifetime in fighter planes. Automakers Audi, Kia, and Mercedes-Benz showed HUD concepts. Audio component supplier Pioneer showed HUDs that could be retrofitted to existing cars. All lean heavily on improving the navigation experience.

Mercedes-Benz snagged one of the CES keynotes and chairman Dieter Zetsche talked up the Dynamic & Intuitive Control Experience, or DICE. Dynamic yes, intuitive not yet, but certainly worthy of being called augmented reality. All manner of information appears on the windshield and you control it with hand gestures: Select an item by closing your fingers and pushing at a virtual button (merely poking at the region isn’t enough) or make a swiping motion to save the information or dismiss it. Information you swipe-save goes to the center stack screen, which is also controlled by hand and arm gestures. In-cockpit cameras track your hand movements and gestures.

The Mercedes demo on the show floor took the form of a virtual drive in a simulator through San Francisco with points of interest circled, the idea being you could gesture to get more information. The gesture you’d use in a busy urban area might be a raised middle finger because of the potential information overload: restaurant, bar, jewelry shops, tour bus stops, bridge and tunnel congestion. And that’s even before you wonder who’s providing the POI information and is it there because it’s the best, or because it pays the automaker the best. This is an issue for the whole industry, not just Mercedes, whose motto is The Best or Nothing.

Out on the highway with DICE, knowing what few gas stations and restaurants are at the next two interchanges might be useful: Waffle House in five miles vs. Panera in 20. Mercedes’ AR HUD is definitely a concept rather than near-product and, as with many technologies delivered by Audi-BMW-Mercedes the past decade, the first iterations easily grasped by their PhD engineers and befuddling to potential customers who haven’t passed through MIT. But the possibilities are dazzling. The Mbrace2 telematics system, also shown at CES, is a real product and very near production (spring 2012); it adds mobile apps to the existing suite of crash notification, remote door unlock, and concierge services.

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